The Scars
by Lialane Graest
Summary: "They ask me if I am ashamed, and are confused when I say I am not. They ask if I am afraid of him, then act as if I am the fool for saying no. They ask if I want to come away with them, to go far away where he could never reach me again. They act concerned when I say no. They ask if I remember how I got the scars, and cry when I say yes." Stein's daughter's diary entry.


They ask me if I am ashamed, and are confused when I say I am not. They ask if I am afraid of him, then act as if I am the fool for saying no. They ask if I want to come away with them, to go far away where he could never reach me again. They act concerned when I say no. They ask if I remember how I got the scars, and cry when I say yes. Then they start their questioning again.

Why should I care? I am not dead. He did nothing to harm me, I was anesthetized during the operations. I am healthy and happy, though they cannot see that. Yes, I miss my mother, but he did not kill her. She died in battle against a very powerful witch, and my father was with her until her last breath.

Yet they still want to take me away from him.

What fools.

"She's only ten, her opinion doesn't matter!" I have heard them say. "Look at the scars on her stomach and chest! Look at the one on her side! What type of monster would do that to their own child!"

My father would, to save my life. But they do not care about that, they do not care that when my mother died she was pregnant with me, or that to save my life he had to perform an emergency cesarean section. They do not care that I was delivered nearly a month early or that I had to have 6 surgeries just to make it through my first three years. No, all they care about all the scars and how horrible it must be for "the poor little thing."

They come nearly every day, asking to talk to me. It is amazing how much a person will do for a child, honestly. All I have to do is ask for a candy and they "ooo" and "aww" like I am some three year old that has just started talking. They ask me to draw for them, like they can analyze my feelings through the pictures.

I drew them a straight line. I started with red and worked my way through the colors of the rainbow, and they analyzed it for days. Apparently they believe that it is an outward expression of the emotions that I do not feel I can express because of my overbearing father.

If my father were overbearing, would he allow them to come and talk to me? Or allow me to attend a public school? Would he have already allowed me to sit on lessons that were being taught not in his class, but the N.O.T class of the DWMA if he were so controlling that he had to watch my every movement?

No, but all they can see are the scars from my latest surgeries.

The most recent one was to repair a valve in my heart. I suppose that it is a good thing that I took after my father and will be a meister. I will be able to teach at the DWMA without much effort, E.A.T. work is sadly too strenuous, but my father is working on a way to change that. I have faith that he will.

They believe that the surgeries he is conducting are nothing more than experiments that he is no longer sane enough to not perform. Dr. Franken Stein is apparently too lost in the madness that he cannot stop himself from repeatedly cutting his only child open. They tend to forget that if he did not perform them I would be dead. But, all they see are the scars and old history.

When they arrive tomorrow for another meeting I will tell them that I no longer wish to speak to them. I believe that this will cause the investigation into my father's apparent slip into madness to be at least doubled in its timetable. I am more than tired of the last two months, and their constant prying. I do not know how many times I can show them scars that were made to save my life and see them gasp in horror before I will want to cut them open myself, just to give them something to truly be afraid of.

I am, after all, my father's daughter.

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**A/N: This was written and posted to keep me on track so that I don't go off writing something new while Heart Shaped Stitches and In a Time of Need are still unfinished.**


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